Quaday’s ‘Expert critic’ receives extra prayers

Letter to the Editor

March 30, 2009

I was truly touched that Dick Quaday would make a special visit to St. Peter and Paul’s church to say a prayer for me and others that have made special efforts to improve Quaday’s Quotes over the years.

The fact that I was deemed an ‘expert critic’ and then received a few extra prayers was especially appreciated. The ‘expert critic’ tag is not something I have ever claimed to be nor wanted to become.

I must apologize to Neva, Dick’s wife, if anything I wrote made her squirm. Many of Dick’s columns have made me feel the same way. My ‘Letters to the Editor’ have been written only to try and set the record straight or rebut something I thought was an error. I have no personal animosity toward Dick and do enjoy his reminiscing of his River Road days having spent many days on the Blue Earth River myself.

I thought about thanking Dick for giving me so many opportunities to write letters. But the reality of it is I end up spending more time on the letters and less time on things more constructive. If you note my ‘Letters to the Editor’ only show up when responding to something that has made me, well, squirm. But thanks anyway Dick.

Back to the prayers. My normal instinct would be to question what was actually in those prayers. I trust Dick to only pray for positive outcomes.

I might suggest to Dick to pray for the taxpayers of Faribault County who have had an unnecessary financial burden placed on their shoulders by our County Commissioners. There are currently 10 prisoners in our existing 18 bed jail. A March 17, 2009, Mankato Free Press article noted that new jails in Hubbard and Crow Wing Counties are operating at around 25-30 percent capacity, down 3.5 percent from a year ago.

Some Hubbard County officials noted that it would be actually cheaper to shut down their jail and ship out their prisoners. This same suggestion was actually made to the Faribault County Commissioners. They must have been too busy listening to the architect's self promotion and just not interested in listening to their constituents. Amen.